I started this blog in 2011 after surviving a stroke. Since then my focus has changed from recovery and life with teenagers to Movies and Life with Adult Children. The remaining constant is my delusion of Royalty. Thank you for visiting my little realm

April 9, 2012

The discoveries I've made on Ancestry.com

While on Facebook
the other day an ad popped up for an app. I hadn't seen before.. Build your Family Tree. What make this app. so great is that it pulls all the information from anyone you have tagged as family and
their family tags as well. I had fun playing and continued on to the Ancestry.com
website taking full advantage of the free 14 day trial. Well the
discoveries that I've made.....

Blended
Families

A lot is made today about blended families. Well I am here
to tell you they are nothing new. The main difference is that today the original spouse is usually still around. I have a great (x3) Uncle
who not only married 3 times but two of his wives had children from previous
marriages. The Brady Bunch has nothing on them. As I don't have the exact
dates it appears as if marriage number two occurred less than 18 months after
the death of his first wife and marriage number three happened within a year after
he lost his second wife. Let's face it marriages in those days were done more for
the common sense of it all. He had a brood of children that needed a
mother and so he sought one out, twice. Oh the fun I am having with the 23
children/step children that Uncle has provided

Repetitive
names

This
discovery really astonished me. Very often when a child died their name
would be reused. I understand that unfortunately it wasn't uncommon
for children to not always survive into adulthood. But to use a deceased
child's name for another child? It is not as if there was a limited option
of names. Inquiring minds wanted to know (okay just mine) how common a practice
this was so I went onto a number of genealogy boards and found many others
asking the same question. It does seem to be most common in the
UK/Ireland histories. Just as common was naming many children with the same first
name and different middle names. One main reason among Catholics is the habit
of naming children for the saint nearest to their birth/christening.
Another reason is the very strong obligation to family names. I ran across this
"rule of names" more than once:

Naming pattern:

1st
son is given the father's father name

2nd
son is given the mother's father name

3rd
son is given the father's name

4th
son is given the father's eldest brother's name

5th
son is given the mother's eldest brothers name

and
in reverse for daughters.(which I totally don't get)

I have to admit in my husband's
family they were quite adamant about naming the first male and female
for the parents. In fact my husband should have his father’s name but that
was passed onto his younger brother.

Different
Families:In keeping up with the times I
appreciate that Ancestry.com offers different family relationships. I was very pleased to find you can choose
whether a parent is biological, step, adoptive, guardian or foster. My mother was a foster child so I thought her
side of the tree would be empty or I’d see dotted lines instead of solid. Kudos
to Ancestry.com as the only way you would know that familiar relationship is
any different from the others is through hitting on that specific person. And don’t you know for now that is where I am
finding the most recent updates complete with pictures!

Here’s my advice for beginners from a beginner: be sure to include any in-law you can on your
tree. You may wonder why you would want the
family history of the wife of your cousin who is three times removed. The
simple answer is this~ someone from that family may have done some serious
research and included your cousin’s family as well. By including that name in your tree you open
yourself up to more connections which mean more trees which ultimately mean
more discoveries!! Oh the places you'll go!

Have fun!! Be sure to let me know what you've discovered and if you have any hints please pass then on.

Well I can see where my curls come from but didn't know my paternal grandma was a blonde!

2 comments:

I used to be into Genealogy, although I haven't done anything in a couple of years. It's addictive though - once you start, it's difficult to step away from it. I think you've inspired me to get back to work, though!!

Lisa you are so right it is incredibly addictive :) But so much fun and truly can be a family activity which is also a plus. IF you go through FB you can get a 14 day free trial to boot. They are in the process of posting the 1940s census which I guess is a big to do. I'll admit we're excited to find some people on there